â€œOur enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.â€

â€œIn memory of the victims of September 11th,â€ Bush passed a law that Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times calls â€œan obscenity against liberty and decencyâ€ and that the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls â€œunconstitutional and un-American.â€ A fitting tribute indeed for the victims whose names have been manipulated by this administration to justify everything from invading Iraq, to the USA PATRIOT Act, to torture, to tax cuts. This â€œhonorâ€ to the victims of September 11th is a national disgrace for which the Bush administration, both houses of Congress, and the media are to blame.

While the White House struggles to convince the nation that the MCA is perfectly legal and essential in order for the CIA to continue â€œone of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history,â€ the true implications of this act must be made clear. Out of the many dubious clauses in the act, the most egregious is the one that eliminates the writ of habeas corpus (the right to challenge the legality of oneâ€™s imprisonment), a fundamental right that dates back to the Magna Carta. In his First Inaugural Address in 1801, Thomas Jefferson said, â€œFreedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus I deem [one of the] essential principles of our government." Ironically, the Supreme Court case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that Bushâ€™s original military tribunals were illegal and made the Congressionally approved MCA necessary, would never have occurred if the MCA had been in effect, as it was petitioned by a detainee.

According to the MCA, â€œNo court, justice, or judge shall have
jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas
corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States
who has been determined by the United States to have been properly
detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.â€

This allows the President to seize a person who is in this country
legally and detain that person indefinitely. Who, though, exactly are
these â€œenemy combatants?â€

The MCA says, â€œThe term â€˜unlawful combatantâ€™ meansâ€¦a person who has
engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported
hostilities against the United Statesâ€¦ or a person whoâ€¦ has been
determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status
Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the
authority of the president of the secretary of defense.â€

With such vague language as â€œpurposefully and materiallyâ€ and such
ambiguous standards as â€œanother competent tribunal,â€ it is not
difficult to foresee the grave violations of human rights that the
state can commit. According to Yale Law Professor and author of Before the Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism Bruce Ackerman, the MCA â€œauthorizes the president
to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never
left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they
cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal
protections of the Bill of Rights.â€

One of the few vociferous opponents of the MCA in the Senate, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, presented this chilling scenario:
â€œImagine, you are a law-abiding, lawful permanent residentâ€¦.You do
charitable fund-raising for international relief agenciesâ€¦.Then one day
there is a knock at your door. The government thinks that the Muslim
charity you sent money to may be funneling money to terrorists, and it
thinks you may be involvedâ€¦.You are brought in for questioningâ€¦.You ask
for a lawyer. But no lawyer comesâ€¦ Then youâ€™re sent to GuantÃ¡namo. And
then nothing, for years, for decades, for the rest of your life.â€

Once you are detained and denied the writ of habeas corpus, you
effectively have no protections, no counsel, and no rights. Bush has
repeatedly emphasized that â€œwe do not tortureâ€ and â€œfreedom from torture is an inalienable human right.â€
This is only true if you allow the Bush administration to define
â€œtorture,â€ a definition that has become so nebulous that it might as
well be changed to â€œwhatever techniques are not being used by the U.S.â€

The MCA gives the President the authority to define and apply Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which refers to the treatment of detainees, and reconfigures the War Crimes Act to expunge this nationâ€™s crimes. The MCA, according to Amnesty International, will â€œnarrow the scope of the War Crimes Act
by not expressly criminalizing acts that constitute â€˜outrages upon
personal dignity, particularly humiliating and degrading treatmentâ€™
banned under [Common Article 3].â€ This is a considerable relief for the
torturers in our government. According to the Huffington Postâ€™s Aziz Huq,
â€œthe Bush administration has gutted the no-torture rule. It has added
the requirement that a person â€˜specificallyâ€™ intend to cause the pain
that amounts to tortureâ€¦.It means that any government agent who says
his goal was to get information, not to cause pain, hasnâ€™t torturedâ€¦.â€

Yet, we are consistently told that opposing these acts and maintaining
a basic level of humanity and decency is tantamount to treason. Speaker
of the House Dennis Hastert claimed that opponents of the MCA are â€œputting their liberal agenda ahead of the security of Americaâ€
and that Democrats â€œwould gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to
destroy innocent American lives.â€ According to Hastert, we have the
false dilemma of either â€œgingerly pamper[ing] the terroristsâ€ or of
criminally stripping Americans and non-Americans of their rights,
torturing them, and committing the brutalities and excesses of tyrants.
This is one of the many logical fallacies employed by the GOP
leadership to misconstrue the terms of the debate and cause people to
vote out of fear; a strategy that weakens this country and undermines
democracy.

By the time the press addressed the real issues concerning the MCA, it was too late. A New York Times editorial titled â€œA Dangerous New Orderâ€
calls the MCA â€œan unconstitutional act.â€ Unfortunately, the editorial,
which could have influenced votes in the House and Senate, was run
after the act was signed. The editorial also erroneously states, â€œThe
law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other
legal United States residents.â€ In fact, as Robert Perry of Consortium News points out, the Act states that â€œAny person is
punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense
punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or
procures its commission.â€ Another inaccurate statement was made on Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume,
when Major Garrett said, â€œthis bill does give detainees the right to
appeal their status as enemy combatants, just not before civilian
courts. They can appeal to a court of military review.â€ Detainees do not all have procedures to challenge their detention in court, an error that was addressed by the media watchdog group Media Matters.

The seamless couplings of the Bush administration, both houses of
Congress, and the media, combined with the powerlessness of the
judiciary, exposes this new era of anti-democratic collusion and the
dissolution of â€œchecks and balances.â€ It is a harsh blow to democracy
when the criminals in the highest offices of the government prove they
are not criminals by changing the laws that they violated. The strategy
of those who made the MCA into law is to erase their past crimes to
pave the way for new ones. The MCA effectively immunizes government
officials against allegations of torture and other war crimes. Surely
this was a consideration when Alberto Gonzales told Bush that denying
the Geneva Conventions would â€œsubstantially reduce the threat of domestic criminal prosecutions under the War Crimes Act.â€

Rosa Brooks wrote in the Los Angeles Times,â€œItâ€™s far too late for Bush to have a legacy that wonâ€™t be a source of shame to future generations.
So heâ€™s going for second best: a congressionally delivered
get-out-of-jail free card.â€ This â€œget-out-of-jail free card,â€ while
giving the Bush regime tyrannical powers and immunity for past crimes,
has the reverse effect for all the co-conspirators who let Bush hurt
this country: Congress (and all those Democrats who voted â€œayeâ€),
the media, the courts, and, of course, we, the voters, all of whom are
now more culpable than ever. The MCA is the latest link in a chain that
increasingly shackles democracy and progress, that tarnishes the rights
and dignity of every person in every country, and that, with every new
link, makes us more complicit accomplices to the crimes committed by
our government, by the ones who hate our freedom.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

In a State Department Foreign Press Center Briefing, John Bellinger, the Legal Advisor to the State Department said: â€œAnd
with respect to the Military Commissions Act, which is extremely
complex, hard to understand, as wonderful a job as you all do in
reporting this in the press, it is hard to understand the details of
the law unless one gets down, lawyer to lawyer, to explain it.â€